Squeezing Sand for Oil
At the bottom of a mine, a giant shovel devours sand and delivers it to trucks like this three-story, four-million-dollar Caterpillar, which muscle up to 400 tons at a time to extraction plants.]]>

Squeezing Sand for Oil
At the extraction plant, bitumen is separated from sand in a hot-water wash. As the bitumen rises to the top of the wash, Suncor employee Lee Flett skims off wood, leaves, and other debris before the sticky load is sent to an upgrading facility that converts it to synthetic crude oil.]]>

Portraits of a Boomtown
More streets are laid for mobile-home neighborhoods in Fort McMurray. The average single-family house costs about $540,000, steep even in a region where wages regularly top $80,000 a year.]]>

Portraits of a Boomtown
Drivers pack Thickwood Boulevard in Fort McMurray during the morning commute. The oil boom has lured thousands here, from unemployed fishermen from eastern provinces to immigrant nannies longing for Canadian citizenship.]]>

Portraits of a Boomtown
Prosperity eludes many, including Janice "Jazzy" Desjarlais (at left) and Cameron McGillvery, who struggle with Alberta's increasingly common challenges of high living costs, unemployment, and homelessness.]]>